Cartoon art

In 1912 the IWW led 25,000 textile workers of Lawrence, Massachusetts out on strike. It was one of the largest organized actions on the part of unskilled, foreign-born workers in American labor history. The introduction of the two-loom system and consequent speed-up in the mills had resulted in extensive lay-offs, a steady decline in wages, and increasingly strenuous work conditions. During a mass demonstration a woman striker was shot and killed. Strikers blamed the police but the police immediately arrested IWW leaders, Joseph Ettor and Arturo Giovannitti (pictured in this cartoon), who were attending a meeting miles away from the demonstration. Ettor and Giovannitti were charged as accessories to murder, accused of inciting violence, and sentenced to prison without trial.